


oh, baby, this town rips the bones from your back

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Love Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, Recovery, a small cameo from sweet pea bc u know who i am, fp's a whole ass gay MESS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 18:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14291106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: FP’s been asking after him, he thinks, replaying the words over in his mind. But he hasn’t called.Part of him agrees with Jughead. The other part of him, the scared part of him that cowers at the sight of Hiram Lodge and clutches at the pill bottle so tight his knuckles turn white, hopes he never works up the guts to call at all.





	oh, baby, this town rips the bones from your back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jugheadjones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/gifts).



> i was going through my docs and wondering which wip i'd reread and do absolutely nothing w next when i found the first scene of this mess i wrote back in january and decided to roll w it. julia ily and i hardly ever write from fred's pov and idk if i'll ever get it down but u deserve some fred content (esp fred suffering bc everyone knows you're a sadist). take it from my hands. 
> 
> set somewhere early s2 but who the hell is a canon anyways???

 

It takes him three separate tries on three separate days to walk into the building. Even when he does, he sits in the back, anxious and terrified of somehow being recognized. Being exposed, even this far out of town. Hands twisting in his lap, over-aware of the feeling of his clothes on his body and how hard it is to breathe once you’re aware of it.    
  
He won’t say anything, today. Won’t say anything ever, if he never comes back, which he’s pretty sure is what’s gonna happen—not even ten minutes in and he feel like he might suffocate.  
  
He has a problem. He knows he has a problem, but being here puts it out in the open. Makes it real. Tangible, and visible to everyone else. God, he should leave.  
  
He doesn’t leave. Sits through the whole thing: the talk about how strong you all are for coming here today, how hard it must be, how you can improve, get better, step by step, listens to a few people tell their story or give updates on how the process is going. The recovery process, he tries his best not to think. The fact that there’s something he needs to recover from (again). The fact that he’s here means that he’s—that he’s an—  
  
He pinches himself hard, thumbnail digging into the skin of his opposite arm. There are good people here, who have it worse than him, he reminds himself. He takes a breath and keeps listening.  
  
Eventually, they hand out paper, and little wooden pencils, like a modern day Christian church service. Try to write an amends to yourself, the man says—a recovered addict himself, he had mentioned.  
  
“What am I supposed to write?” He asks when the man comes around.  
  
He smiles a little, and says “This is your first time, right?” Fred nods apprehensively, and the man answers his question: “Whatever you want. Talk to yourself. Say what you need to say, admit when you need to admit to take those first steps.”  
  
“That doesn't make any sense. It's not going to change anything.”  
  
“Maybe not,” the man agrees. “But it’s a start. Give it a try, if you feel up to it. It helps.”  
  
(It helps, he tells himself, clutching the bottle tight enough that his knuckles turn white with the strain.)  
  
Fred stares at the paper in front of him for a long time, fidgets with his pencil. He practices slipping it through his fingers without dropping it, the way he used to be good at wasting time during class back in high school. Looks at the clock and sees his time is running out.    
  
_I am,_ he writes, and then erases.  
  
_I'm not,_ he tries again. The paper is smudging after he erases the second time, ruining any chance he had of a clean confession.  
  
He switches pencils. Gets one with a better eraser, or maybe a sharper point.  
  
By the end of the session, I'm sorry, is all he's managed to write. He stares at the words, who stare right back, before he crumples the messy paper up into a neat little ball because he doesn't want to look at them anymore. He throws it in the trash on his way out.

 

Jughead comes over on Sunday to make breakfast, like he did every Sunday he stayed with them at the house, sleeping in Archie’s room. When Fred tells him he doesn’t have to, Jug shrugs and says that it’s habit at this point, and he hardly ever sees them anymore as it is, so it’s nice to spend time doing something calm. Well, he doesn’t say it in as many words, but Fred’s known him since he was a kid; he’s learned by now how to read between the lines.

He’s always over early, and Archie almost always sleeps in. Sometimes Fred is up before Jug slips through the front door in the morning, but he usually comes downstairs to the smell of pancakes or eggs or whatever else Jug decided to make that day.

This morning, it’s waffles and bacon. Fred didn’t even know they still owned a waffle maker, but he’s not surprised that Jug knew where it was.

Still, “Where’d you find that old thing?” he asks in greeting. Jughead startles a little, but quickly relaxes at the sound of his voice.

He shrugs, “It was just in the pantry. I was looking for the Bisquick and decided I wanted waffles instead of pancakes.”

Fred makes a fake disappointed noise, “Ah, but I love your pancakes. You always put nice little chocolate chips or fruit in ‘em.”

“Chocolate chips aren’t good recovery food,” Jug says, flipping the bacon on the skillet, “And you’re all out of fruit. You have the same loaf of bread you had last week,” a pause, “Can bread expire?”

Fred ignores the surprise he feels (he was sure he had gone to the grocery store just a few days ago, or he’d at least sent Archie out with some money and a list) and takes the distraction, opening a cabinet and reaching for a coffee cup,  “It can grow mold, but I don’t know if that counts as expiration.”

To his frustration, his hands shake as he pulls the mug out of the cabinet; it almost slips through his fingers, but Jughead takes it carefully from his grasp before it can. He sets it on the counter without saying anything. Fred smiles his thanks.

“Well, if you wait any longer your bread might start growing mold. And Archie would probably just straight up eat it.”

That startles a laugh out of Fred, and he shakes his head a little. Jug raises an eyebrow, “You think I’m joking, but I once watched him peel a banana, look at every single bruise on it, and then put it in his mouth. He ate the whole thing.”

“I’ve watched you eat an Oreo off the floor,” Fred points out, if only to salvage some of Archie’s dignity for him. Poor kid has no idea his best friend is attacking him like this. He pads though the kitchen, grateful that Jug had thought to turn the coffee maker on before Fred woke up.

“That’s completely different,” Jughead defends, but he’s smiling a little, “I know when something is like, fundamentally inedible. Plus, an Oreo is an Oreo. It was the Halloween kind, I wasn’t just gonna waste it.”

Fred laughs quietly, and Jughead looks quietly pleased with himself. The waffle maker goes off, and he pulls out a plate to stack the waffles on. Fred watches him do it, listening to the neighborhood lazily come to life, sipping his coffee and enjoying the moment.

“How many?” Jug asks, pulling out a few more plates before grabbing the butter from the fridge.

“Just one is fine,” Fred answers, taking a seat at the counter.

Jug hums in acknowledgment, but still slides him a plate with two waffles and more bacon than he piles on his own plate, which is a lot. He brings the butter and syrup with him, but very conspicuously doesn’t pull out the powdered sugar. He usually uses so much it looks like he’s eating a plateful of snow, but he hasn’t even looked at it this morning.

Fred wonders if he should be annoyed that he’s the one being parented. Mostly he just feels fond, and a little bit grateful. Which he shouldn’t be, because he’s doing fine, but it’s nice not to do all the work every once in a while. He can let himself have something nice.

“You doin’ alright, Mr A?” Jug asks a few minutes into their meal.

Fred pauses, thrown off by the sudden question. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m doing fine.”

Jug looks at him like he doesn’t quite believe him, and says, “It’s fine if you’re not. I mean, if I got shot I wouldn’t be doing very fine.”

Fred smiles weakly, shakes his head, “I’m recovering faster than expected. I made it halfway up the ladder the other day.”

Jug looks vaguely alarmed, “For what, Christmas lights?” he scoffs when Fred nods, “You should’ve told Archie’s lazy ass to hang them up himself.”

“I was fine, Jug,” Fred says, huffing a laugh, “Like I said, I’ve been - ”

“Recovering faster than expected,” Jughead interrupts gently, “I know. But. Just ‘cause you can walk now doesn’t mean you’re fine.”

Fred does his best to smile carefully, ignoring the pang in his chest. Jughead’s always been an observant kid. “I appreciate the concern, but I really am doing alright, Jug.”

He finishes his coffee up in one last sip, and stands up to get a refill. Jughead doesn’t push anymore, digging into his third waffle and checking his phone for something.

“Mr A?” he asks a few minutes later, while Fred is mixing in the creamer.

“Yeah?”

“Have you - ” a pause, “Have you heard from my dad at all?”

Fred just barely stops himself from dropping his spoon. He wasn’t expecting that question at all. “No,” he says, “I haven’t. Why?”

Jug looks vaguely uncomfortable, but just shrugs, “He’s been… asking about you, lately.”

“He has?” he asks carefully, because he knows Jug is watching him carefully.

“Yeah. Like, he keeps asking how you’re doing, and if you’re recovering well and all that. I keep telling him to just _call_ you and ask you himself, but,” he make a frustrated little huff, “I guess he hasn’t. I don’t get why he doesn’t just call.”

Fred pushes down whatever emotion is building in his chest. “That’s just how FP is, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jug frowns vaguely at his empty plate, “I guess I do.”

He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but Archie chooses that moment to stumble down the stairs with all the grace of Vegas on the wood flooring when his nails haven’t been cut.

“Hey, Arch,” he calls.

Archie, still somewhere between sleep and consciousness, yawns and says, “Hey, dad. Morning, Jug.”

“Morning,” Jug answers, offering his empty plate to Archie, who takes it with a sleepy little smile. “I’m surprised you’re up before ten.”

“Smelled bacon,” Archie explains. Jug laughs a little. Fred feels his shoulders loosen, the tension in his stomach ease a bit as Jug turns his attention to making fun of Archie for dropping the butter knife and kind of just watching as it clattered on the floor.

FP’s been asking after him, he thinks, replaying the words over in his mind. But he hasn’t called.

Part of him agrees with Jughead. The other part of him, the scared part of him that cowers at the sight of Hiram Lodge and clutches at the pill bottle so tight his knuckles turn white, hopes he never works up the guts to call at all.

 

He eventually convinces himself to go a second time. It’s a thirty minute drive out of town to the little building where the support group meets, but he’s alright with that. Prefers it, even. The further away from his life and his son this mess of his is, the better. Nobody else has to know about it.

The man he talked to before smiles at him, something pleasantly surprised. “Glad to see you again,” he says.

Fred smiles back, and wishes he could say the same.

He’s still determined not to talk—a childish part of him still doesn’t want to admit anything wrong. But Jugheads words echo back at him, and he knows deep down that he’s slipping. Jug is hardly around anymore, dealing with his new school and FP’s upcoming trial, but even he can tell that something is wrong. He needs to be better. He needs to get better.

At the end of the sharing portion of the meeting, the man approaches him.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here again,” he says politely.

“I didn’t think I’d come back,” Fred answers honestly.

“What made you give it a second shot?”

Fred pauses for a moment, the mess of anxiety in his chest twisting up and choking him. “My son,” he says eventually, “I can’t let him—I love him so much, and he needs me to be there with him, not off in my own world.”

“That’s a good reason,” the man says in understanding, “I never would’ve been able to quit without my daughter. But,” here he pauses, “what about yourself?”

“What about myself?”

“You want to quit for yourself too, don’t you?”

“I,” Fred says, and stops, “I don’t know. Should I?”

“Your son is a good place to start. But you have to look at what it’s doing to you, too.”

I know what it’s doing to me, Fred thinks, I know exactly what it’s doing to me.

Still, he leaves the meeting with a ten step pamphlet and the memory of every single pamphlet or flyer or paperback self help book FP has tossed in the trash over the years, how he’s tried to go sober for Jughead more than once, how the only reason he’s sober now is because he’s in prison for covering up a murder. No matter how sour of a taste it leaves in his mouth, he can only hope he won’t end up the same way.

 

The phone rings a week or so later, and Fred picks it up without looking at it.

“Hello?” He asks. There is a heavy silence, a sound like somebody is trying to say something but can’t, and then he’s hung up on.

When he checks the caller ID, it says it was from the prison. He doesn’t know whether he’s disappointed that FP is too over dramatic to hold a conversation and chickened out, or relieved that he didn’t have to try.

 

It turns out that going cold turkey on a brand new...problem, it’s just a problem, is harder than he thought it would be. It comes with obvious side effects that are easily explained at first—his muscles ache because recovery from being shot is hard—but get more difficult as the weeks pass. There’s only so much _I’m just tired, just having an off day, just a little sick,_ can explain away. He’s lucky Archie is so busy doing whatever it is he does now that he hasn’t truly caught on yet. He knows Jug or Alice would know in a second if they really thought about it, and it terrifies him.

He thinks about FP complaining and complaining about his head hurting and his hands shaking and how fucking sick he felt whenever he tried to quit drinking, how he’d watch him complain himself into giving up and grabbing for the whiskey his dad kept in the back of the pantry, just for a sip, he would say, to take the edge off and then I’m done for real. He never was done for real.

He tries his best to figure out if this is normal, if he should be feeling this way, tries to type it out and look it up on the laptop Mary got him for Christmas last year (he barely uses it, because it makes him feel old). Reads enough to know that going cold turkey isn’t the best option—you should wean yourself off slowly with smaller and smaller dosage so your body has time to adjust, but Fred doesn’t have time for that. He doesn’t know what big upcoming events he needs to go clean for, but the pit of anxiety in his chest grows each time he thinks about being stuck like this. He has to do it now.

Archie is out at practice, Alice is at a PTA meeting and Fred is in the bathroom, trying to stop his body from shaking and his stomach from cramping up out of sheer force of will, when there’s a knock on the door.

“God,” he curses softly, pulling himself up on shaky legs and pulling his robe tight around him.

It’s just Jughead, he sees when he opens the door. Something in his chest tightens, but he pats it down with a tired smile.

“Hey, Jug,” he says.

“Hey Mr A,” he answers, looking vaguely apologetic, “Sorry for bothering you, but is Archie here?”

“He’s at practice right now, sorry,” he tells him, even though he’s sure that Jughead already knows exactly what time football practice starts.

Jughead nods, not looking all that sorry about it. He glances at Fred, glances away, and says, “So uh, I also thought I would come by and. Well, my dad—“ he’s interrupted by the honk of a car Fred hadn’t seen parked down at the curb.

“Hurry the hell up, Jones,” a kid yells irreverently, like it isn’t nearly eight at night in a strangers neighborhood. Fred likes him immediately.

“A friend of yours?” Fred asks, smiling vaguely as Jughead yells at the kid to shut up and learn some goddamn patience.

“Uh, yeah,” Jughead says, fidgeting with his hands the way he does when he’s embarrassed.

“He seems nice,” Fred offers, and Jug snorts.

“So um, about my dad. He’s super dramatic and all that, and still doesn’t want to just call you, so he asked me to give you this.” he pulls out a little, folded up envelope from the pocket of his jacket, and offers it to Fred like it’s something delicate, holding it with a reverence meant only for sacred objects despite the way it’s crinkled up and made of paper. Fred takes it carefully.

“It’s uh.” Here, Jug pauses again, like he isn’t sure what to say, “Well, I think you should read it. I think it… it probably explains a lot of stuff.” he's speaking from experience, and looks vaguely like he wants to sink into the floor. Fred is suddenly very afraid of what it says.

The kid honks again, more drawn out this time. Fred counts ten seconds before a dog barks somewhere up the street.

Jughead rolls his eyes like this is a common occurence; he seems a little hesitant, but eventually says, “Sorry, I gotta go, Sweet Pea’s gonna have an aneurism if I make him wait anymore.”

Fred doesn’t bat an eye at the name, too focused on the weight of the envelope in his hand, and nods.

“It was nice seeing you,” he says, “Drive safe.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jug says, smiling, “Thanks Mr A. Take it easy, okay?”

“Sure,” Fred says, but doesn’t know if Jug hears it. He’s already down the steps and halfway across the driveway, saying something about how he knows you don’t have anywhere else to be right now, asshole, you’re like a five year old.

 _A five year old who drove your ass all the way here,_ the kid shoots back.

 _It isn’t even your car, shut up._ Whatever the boy says back is cut off as Jughead pulls the car door shut behind him.

Fred watches the unfamiliar car drive away until it turns the corner, and carefully closes the front door.

It takes him a long time to open the envelope.

He sets it on the kitchen table and decides to clean the living room instead of read it. It doesn’t help distract him—it anything, it makes him more anxious. He can feel the weight of the letter, staring at him just down the hall. Just to spite it, and to quell some of the anxiety perpetually building in his chest, he cleans the kitchen, too.

Eventually, though, he runs out of things to do. He can picture FP in his little cell, wringing his hands and waiting for Fred to read whatever it is he wrote, and decides he at least owes him this much. His hands shake as he opens the envelope.

The first half is written in small, messy handwriting—Jughead’s handwriting, he recognizes from the countless birthday cards Archie’s gotten over the years and schoolwork he’d leave spread out all over the table—but they aren’t his words. Fred knows this, because the second line calls him Freddy, and it’s scrawled out like it’s trying to keep up. Halfway through, the handwriting changes, like Jughead decided he just couldn’t do this anymore. It’s shaky, and a little bit smeared, like the writer was second guessing every word. Fred knows FP’s handwriting as well as his own.

The second half is also where Fred starts to cry. It isn’t something he’s conscious of until the word _sorry_ is blotted out and the drop of water spreads as far as it can go before it sinks into the paper. It doesn’t make much of a difference, anyways. There are so many words crossed out and rewritten ( _I know I’ve done some bad shit to you and I know you’ve done some shit to me but I just—I still—I can’t fucking get you out of my head, you know? never in my life been able to stop_ ) that one more stain isn’t gonna ruin it.

Fred’s hands shake and he does nothing to stop them, this time. God, FP is such a drama queen. Pouring so much into one stupid letter Fred can hear him all the way across town; the way he used to smile at him after football games and _those were the best years of my life,_ down at the diner, like his actual son wasn’t sitting across from him.

Archie comes home to see him hunched over the kitchen table with his head in his hands, because an hour later he still hasn’t managed to pull himself together. Predictably, he drops his backpack on the ground and rushes over.

“Dad, are you okay?” he asks frantically; glances at the letter folded on the table, “What’s that? Is it from the hospital? Is someone like, threatening you?”

“No,” he manages to say, something on the verge of a laugh; Archie grew up so well, “Nobody's threatening me.”

“Oh. Do you have a stalker?”

Fred does laugh, this time, the noise catching on the inside of his throat, “God, no.”

Archie seems to take his laugh as a good sign, shoulders loosening up just a bit, “Are you okay?” he asks again. “Did something happen?”

Fred looks at the letter, thinks about the painkillers still hidden like a guilty pleasure under his mattress, and nods. “I think so.”

“Was it something bad?”

“No,” he says, “I don’t think it was.”

 

Later that night, after Archie is asleep and Fred has been staring at the ceiling for half the night, he pulls himself out of bed and trudges downstairs.

 _The thing is,_ shaky words Fred has just about memorized in the hours since he first read them, _I think on some level I’ve always known, and of course I thought I did back in high school, I thought I knew everything back then but it turns out I didn’t actually ever know shit about anything._

Carefully, listening to the sound of the clock in the kitchen ticking and remembering the way FP used to complain about not being able to sleep the night before “important shit”, Fred picks up the phone, takes a deep breath, and dials up the city prison.

 

**Author's Note:**

> im incapable of writing a single fic w/o my stupid boy in it im so sorry


End file.
